I'm not a medical expert (and I detest medical jargon), but dolicho- as a suffix means long and narrow -- don't know the signficance of having a long and narrow head unless it is related to being horse-faced.

I tracked down the roots too - but they made no sense until you suggested 'horse-faced'. Only ever came across the word in Tom Sharpe's Wilt - I think with reference to the psychiatrist who is asked to assess the eponymous protagonist.

I think that the word "dolicocefalo" (and also some similar words ) are related to Cesare Lombroso (about 1880?), who was thinking that it is possible to predict the behaviour (criminal or not) of someone from the shape of his skull ( and - I imagine- from the size of its brain). So he was classifying people in several classes, according to the kind of shape...Do you remember "Frankenstein junior", when there is a collection of brains... and Marty Feldman takes the one with the label "ab normal"?CiaoEmanuela

>Bel - some free verse is very, very good - and not all poetry should be rejected on the grounds that it doesn't follow the traditional structures...

Shanks dear, if you have any suggestions to make as to good free verse, I'd like to hear them. I promise I will look into it. As it stands, in the 'poems' I have seen, you can remove the returns and put them in paragraph form and it will sound exactly the same.

What I admire about poems is their rhythmic quality. Haiku's do not rhyme but they do have rhythm. What burns my butt is that, like you say, poets that use rhyme and rhythm are considered second-class – but it's hard work. I know I can't do it.

When I read something like:

I went to the grocery…..store, and when

I was in the produce section I sawthat no more melons …….were in the bin. And my dog was waiting in the car

I want to pull out my hair at the thought that someone was PAID for this.

(Oy, two grumpy posts in a row. My jubilant reputation is going to take a beating. You can now call me Grumpy Gus )

Though I can't claim to be an expert on poetry, I am currently in a class based around it, and I think the main purpose of peotry is to convey an image, however twisted or droll that image may be. Poetry is a means of expressing one's artistic thoughts. In certain types of free verse, a poet can use a word here, a large space, a couple words here, another in all capitals here and make some sort of idea pop into the readers head. Spacing and using all lower case can be effective in certain ways. It may not be nicely organized and traditional, but it can get it's point across.

It took me a moment before I figured out that emanuela was referring to the 1974 American film "Young Frankenstein" when she mentioned a scene from "Frankenstein Junior." This, according to the Italian-language site of the IMDB, is because this film was released in Italy in 1975 under the name "Frankenstein Junior." Go figure.

And you're right, cara mia, it is a very funny scene where Feldman gets the brains mixed up.

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